A beer perfect for breakfast

It’s indisputable that nothing goes better than a Belgian-style tripel and a bowl of sugary cereal.

Now Somerville Brewing Company (AKA Slumbrew) and Mike Johnson of Festpics.com have joined together to bring to the masses this perfect combination in the form of Saturday Morning Ale.

Saturday Morning Ale was the brainchild of Johnson, formerly of Natick, who came up with the concoction while homebrewing.

“I originally wanted to incorporate a red berry into a Belgian tripel,” said Johnson. “I wanted to step out of the normal category color and I thought why not add a sweet berry flavor. I had brewed a blueberry Belgian before with disastrous results. The macerated blueberries in the fermenter made the Belgian yeast go crazy into a very active fermentation. So much so that the krausen clogged the airlock and blew the bung out with such force that is sprayed all over my basement. Not wanting to replicate that again, I went a little more along the creative cereal route. Little did I know that there were so many different color cereal berries in the bag... luckily food coloring dropped out in fermentation and it was a nice traditional Belgian color with that awesome berry flavor in the finish.”

Although he did not say exactly what cerea is used, Johnson said his original batch used six pounds of “corn and oat-based cereal with berry flavor pieces mixed in.”

Anyone who has been to a Boston-area beer event would recognize Johnson. Running festpics.com, he pretty much is one of the most regular sights at beer events. About six years ago, Caitlin Jewell, co-founder of Slumbrew contacted Johnson about photographing an event, and he brought her a bottle of his homebew version of his cereal beer.

Recently, Slumbrew decided to recreate the beer with Johnson.

“The recipe for Saturday Morning is modified a little bit from their Trekker Trippel,” said Johnson. “The day of the brew, they had already mashed in and added the cereal. I stopped by for lunch to chat and...lo and behold more boxes of cereal showed up. It was the perfect opportunity for some photos for me to add the rest of cereal.”

Slumbrew will be hosting a release of Saturday Morning Ale at the brewery at 15 Ward St., Somerville, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m on March 24. Attendees are encouraged to wear pajamas, and there will be samples of Captain Crunch cereal, raffles and prizes. Cans of Saturday Morning will be available for sale.

Johnson said he wouldn’t mind brewing another beer.

“I do have some other ideas but with the craft beer world growing as much as it has, just about everything has been done before,” he said.